February 08, 2013
Brotherhood
This week at Toastmasters a participant used his two minutes of podium
time by talking about those occasional jingles and songs that get stuck in your
head and they just keep going around and around. Don then went on to say how
discouraged he was by the constant upheaval on the political landscape where
the attacks on one another never cease and seem to be getting harsher by the
day. Don had a great antidote, “When we start hearing it [trash talk] we need
to have a response that makes us think and feel better. Don then began singing,
‘O beautiful for spacious skies, for
amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties, above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed his grace on thee. And Crown thy good with
brotherhood from sea to shining sea!’” (America the Beautiful, lyrics by Katharine
Lee Bates and melody, Samuel Ward 1913)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----For some reason Don’s antidote reminds me of the band playing on the deck of the sinking Titanic. I’m not disagreeing that striking up the band while the ship sinks does not help. It has many good effects. Still the ship sinks. Maybe the time for trash talk truly is over. The mouse can cry, curse, and trash talk even his own appetite for cheese all he wants, but after the trap has sprung he goes nowhere. Such talk shows only what a fool he was for treating a trap like a grocery store. With his head so whacked, he doesn't want to feel worse. Maybe a little reverant silence is what our whacked heads need, too.
-----I know various battles of World War II produced victory from every element of defeat. I know the old adage places the darkest part of night just before dawn. But Word War II was fought when left wing deceit was yet in its infancy, when collectivist Nicolaitans were working against a generation still personally accustomed to an actual free-market, individualistic culture, rather than our recent papier-mâché mockery. Of course, when the talk is about the evil mentality chiseling down our great foundations, we hear these choruses bemoaning shameful trash-talk while frog-walking honest and loving folks before us. So let's show respect for the dead mouse and grow silent in our trap, too.
-----There was once a time when trash talk in the market place and at schools and in the churches was vital and would have prevented our current collapse. There was plenty, but some is trash talk because it lies, distorts, and impugns what is good and right and proper. Talk about the real trash not being thrown out of our society was bullied out of the public square. Maybe someone brighter than I am knows how to talk about trash without talking about trash. But the trash left to pile up in all our institutions became so many elephants in the room that the truth no longer has a place.
-----So, I am currently pondering a position with the band on Titanic’s deck. God did not raise up America to be our wonderful home. There was a century of restraining evil which He needed. Looking at America’s roll in the world last century, one can not help but see God’s purpose for it. If one knows Revelation, Ezekiel, Daniel, and world history well, one can not fail to see the significance of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse after World War I, the restraint of evil’s fascist expression from World War II until recently, and the amazing revival of the “Ottoman Empire” in the current rise of Islamo-fascism throughout the world. If one is present of mind enough to notice that Israel was placed back into her promised land while the Ottoman Empire was dead, which is coming alive again with all it’s hatred for Israel on steroids, then one can not help thinking it is now too late for politics.
-----Yes, I think I might be falling in line with Don. I trash talk much less, even though I tried to keep it truly about trash when I did. Instead, I am slowly replacing my “trashy” expressions regarding the purveyors of evil with a very simple one: they are grapes. And I feel like singing some hymns and telling some folks that the vat most likely is being rolled out of storage as we speak. It’s time to face Jesus Christ with knees to the ground. A great morning is about to dawn.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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